This mammoth shingled home on Rebecca Lane in Boulder Creek is officially underway. Thirty years of neglect. This is the north facing front of this beautiful mountain hideaway. As always, we decided on Extreme by Defy. We will use a cedar tone as a 3/5 base, and add redwood, driftwood grey, and butternut to complete the mix.

Beautiful Deck on The Peninsula. My second time out to this property, first time being 2014. This deck takes 6+ hours of hot afternoon sun daily.

Water Bead Test more to show just how natural the finished look of the Extreme Stain by Defy is when professionally applied. This combination is 1/4 Driftwood Grey, 1/4 Light Walnut, 1/4 Cedar, 1/8 Redwood, 1/8 Butternut.

Santa Cruz Deck Maintenance

Hardwood Deck – Felton California

Extreme Stain by Defy, Custom Redwood Blend

Santa Cruz Fence Maintenance

Staining & Sealing

Custom Tones

One section at a time. This new fence wraps around a corner lot home and stood unprotected for the perfect amount of time, which in this case was 8 months. Quick wash, 3x coat blending a driftwood grey tone with an earth tone. Delicious!

A question Quinn and I get asked a lot:What is the best method to match & maintain my wood deck when a board or two, or perhaps large portions of our deck are replaced with new boards? It’s a good question.

Every so often, a picture does more justice than if the moment wasn’t captured at all. This is an early evening shot as you can maybe see by the moon in the sky. This is a 40 year old wood structure that I first overhauled in 2012.

The February 2018 work weather aligned perfectly for some routine maintenance on these beautiful West Side town homes off Mission Avenue above downtown Santa Cruz. This is the west facing side. Takes a lot of sun..

Call or Text today and schedule a bid. Decks, Shingles, Fences..

831-246-2010

With our winter weather being so unseasonably warm and cooperative, this spring project got moved up to January/February 2018. This is an enormous East Facing side of a shingle home in South Santa Cruz. These closeup shots make a couple of points. First, every shingle will forever appear different, regardless of how well maintained they are. And second, you are looking at a very custom marriage between white exterior paint and transparent stain.

Quinn & Reggie

This is high end lumber on a custom home built in 1995. We began the siding maintenance in 2004. Therefore, in the 13 years since we got the job, this was our fourth time adding a maintenance coat to this South facing wall. From the top, you can see that the staining process is underway. So yeah, 4x in 13 years due to the heavy sun exposure. Many parts of this beautiful home in Live Oak have received only one coat during the past 13 years. Another example of “as needed” exterior wood maintenance. The alternative to “as needed” maintenance is waiting every 10 years to stain the entire home. Bad idea!!

This A-client waited as long as she was capable of waiting before telling me to stop telling her to wait. It was going to be that classic case of client always being right, even though I always know best. The Lowdown: It’s new wood, and was just built a couple months prior. It had definitely turned a little. And by turned I mean that the brand new pinkish white look had faded some. There were bird droppings all over. Many of the boards had already pushed out additional sap. It was no dirtier than it should have been. If it were my deck, I definitely would have waited another 4 months, which would have meant like half the upcoming winter. Well the client wasn’t having any more of my logic, and I was happy to cave in to her request. They are close friends and special clients to me.

I will be keeping a close eye on this new entryway. It’s right in my neighborhood, and I’m always curious. Especially when I reluctantly cave in to a work related request.

Transparent Stain is Extreme by Defy(Dark Tone)

There were several factors that lead to me agreeing to perform this solid color makeover. It was a full wash, and a partial stain. We stained all the flooring, the top piece of the rail, and too many accents boards to name. I ensured the client that I would tie everything together symmetrically. The goal was to find that balance between investing the right amount into this 30 year old deck. We used a Flood Product that we purchased from King’s Paint & Paper. I forget the exact color. It was my only time working with a solid decking stain this particular deck maintenance season, and by the end of the job, I was reminded 1000x why. To me it felt like I was applying chocolate fudge everywhere. In the end however, and yes it took an additional ten hours of honest labor for me to get to that particular end, the results were quite nice. Most importantly, the client loved it. As always, I was the harsher critic..

More Ipe’. This is a beautiful deck. It’s at least eight years old. The deck is likely 10-12 years old. It gets filtered sun throughout most the day. It sits beneath two pretty good sized Oak Trees. A really nice design with every board having to be cut 2x. Upper Prospect Heights Santa Cruz California. The pictures tell most the story.

The clients had been living here for eight years. They hadn’t done anything to the deck since moving in other than regularly blow off the abundance of leaves and debris, and a couple times per year the homeowner would bust out his Target Pressure Washer and give it what he probably referred to as a deeper cleaning. Outside of that, the Ipe’ just sat there and endured summer after summer, winter after winter.

Obviously from the pictures, it was pretty filthy. Thankfully, it cleaned up real nice. I’d like to point out picture #3. You can see the reflection in the standing water. That means only one thing. The spaces between the boards are crammed with debris. Water proves to just as much damage to wood boards as does sun. And slippery when wet! Picture #4 is a dry look of the staining process. We used Extreme by Defy, a blended tone.

Santa Cruz Deck Maintenance

This was a new(ish) east-facing backyard deck up near UCSC. This redwood deck was built in the late summer 2015. This client happened to be an accomplished wood worker himself, and knew the importance of letting brand new redwood boards age in place. He and his wife happened to wait a couple years, which certainly was not too long given the fact that the deck only gets morning sun til about 2pm.

Naturally, the deck had opened up, and oxidized grey. Obviously it cleaned up very nicely. The clients wanted a dark, richer tone to match the modern look of their home. We used a Butternut Tone blend from Extreme by Defy. We washed and stained some of their Ipe’ furniture as well.